In October of 2008, Kitty Lunn celebrated 50 years of dancing. She’s done it all: modern, classical ballet, partner, solo, group, starting a dance company, teaching, learning.
When Lunn was in the Washington Ballet at age 15, she agonized over her body. Many professional dancers stand 5’8” or taller, while Lunn’s head barely scraped the tape measure at 5’2”.
Agnes De Mille was an artist and resident where Lunn studied. After Ms. De Mille would teach, she would sit the girls around her and talk to her adoring students. When Lunn expressed her vertical limitations and spoke in measures of bone implants, Ms. De Mille stopped her, took Lunn’s face in her hands and said, “Kitty dear, you have to learn to dance in the body you’re in.”
The Physical Therapy Process
Fast forward the tape 20 years. While rehearsing for her first Broadway show, Lunn fell on a set of icy steps and sustained a spinal cord injury (SCI). Lunn didn’t know that she wouldn’t walk again until three years and five spinal surgeries later. Finally, after living in the hospital for three years, Lunn was released only to face her next challenge: one-on-one, in-home physical therapy for five hours a day, five days a week, for five years.
Shaw Bronner, Lunn’s physical therapist, was also a dancer. “Because she was a dancer, we had a common vocabulary.” Lunn was very motivated to work hard in physical therapy and Bronner was equally creative. Never focusing on a list of can or cannots, Bronner modified her dance routines to help Lunn succeed, giving Lunn the ability and confidence to accomplish not just her dance moves, but also the activities of daily living.
From her dancer’s perspective, Lunn’s wheelchair became a tool to enhance her abilities and gain independence, rather than a negative reflection of what she couldn’t do. “When I was able to go get the mail by myself, I knew I’d be able to eventually get outside. It was like a light bulb went off and I knew, I can do this.”
Fighting Depression
Lunn admits that she had some “seriously down days.” But her support team was unflappable, her dancer’s spirit continued to be nurtured by Bronner, her psychotherapist helped her work her way through a tangle of emotions and depression, and most importantly, she had an unflagging, supportive partner in husband Andrew. Kitty Lunn and Andrew had met one month prior to her accident and were married only months after she left the hospital.
“Our courtship took place almost entirely inside the hospital,” laughs Lunn.
Andrew, an actor, saw Lunn’s distress at losing her identity as a dancer and spoke frankly to her: “If you want to dance, what’s stopping you?”
Discovering Wheelchair Dance
Andrew’s words struck a chord and off went light bulb number two: Lunn realized that the only thing stopping her was her own fear of the unknown and of failure. Lunn set a target date for herself to get back into a mainstream dance class. Bronner and Lunn’s psychotherapist worked with her to get mind, body, and spirit prepared, while Lunn dealt with her mixed emotions of fear and excitement.
Finally, she was ready, or at least ready to try – she had given herself permission to leave the dance class and try again if it was proving difficult. And in fact, when she walked into the dance studio, she was incredibly self-conscious about the stares she garnered, “like I had sprouted two heads.” But in she rolled.
She was immediately encouraged when dancers Paloma Herrera and Vladimir Malakhov made room for her at the barre. “That’s when I knew I’d be okay. I could figure out how to transpose what I knew about classic ballet and modern dance to work for me in a chair. And if I could, I could teach others as well.”
Infinity Dance Theater is Born
Shortly thereafter, in 1995, Lunn founded Infinity Dance Theater, a non-traditional dance company that welcomes everyone, regardless of age or ability. Infinity's dance troupe has toured the world, changing people’s perspective of what dance means.
Lunn’s progress was not without the occasional hitch, however. For example, after a short while she found that the chair she was using was hindering her movement. Undaunted, she and Andrew developed a plan to remedy the problem. She would rent a studio to practice privately, while Andrew would lie on his stomach to watch the pattern of the wheelchair’s movement.
Lunn would comment on what wasn’t working and Andrew would note where the problems seemed to occur. Based on their notes, Andrew then developed a lightweight chair made specifically for Lunn to dance in. Explains Lunn, “Over the last 20 years, we’ve figured it out. It’s rare to find a married couple together 24/7, but we work very well together. I couldn’t do half of what I do without all that he does.”
Any Disability Welcome
Today, Lunn teaches classes in which there is a mixture of disabilities: some students are in power chairs, some in manual chairs, some on leg braces, and others able-bodied. “Whether I work with children with disabilities, young adults, or older students—we’ve all learned that dancing doesn’t have as much to do with legs as it does with the soul and the spirit.”
Talking about a student she had four years ago whose disability was so severe that she could only blink her eyes, Lunn pointed out, “Everyone participates at their full potential. If you can only blink your eyes, then you’d better do that the best that you can.”
This student participated on stage with a group of students who covered the spectrum of ability. “It’s so profound to watch young people experience motion and movement in a way they never thought possible. I’ve learned more about joy and focus from my students than I could have ever known on my own,” Lunn says.
Wheelchair Dance Shoe
Lunn describes wheelchair dance as akin to dancing in different shoes. Dancers use tap and point shoes to achieve different expressions; in Lunn’s class, rubber wheels are just another vehicle in which to convey emotion with movement of the body.
Lunn taught a dance class at an elementary school in which the special education students were kept separate from the rest of the students. When Lunn brought them together in her class, she witnessed a remarkable thing: “The kids broke down stereotypes and started playing on the playground together. Once they had an opportunity, they learned from each other and made friends.”
Lunn finds it difficult to give advice to people just recovering from an accident resulting in disability, because she feels that “disability is not a one-size-fits-all, like tube socks. It’s all personal and unique. If you’ve made the choice to live, you need to have faith that the sum total of who you are hasn’t been injured. Each day we have the opportunity to put into practice what we learned yesterday. It takes an adjustment to surrender to our right to be offended by our own perfections. Whatever it is that you do or want to do, today is a good day to start again.
“That’s all I know.”
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